As a result, China's ban on waste imports has led to western countries scrambling to offload its extra plastic waste and dumping it in other countries instead

"Instead of taking responsibility for their own waste, US companies are exploiting developing countries that lack the regulation to protect themselves," said John Hocevar, Oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA (an investigative unit of Unearthed), reported The Guardian.

China's refusal to receive the rubbish has now produced "an enormous amount of plastic material that we don't know how to handle," he added.

Labour MP and member of the Environmental Audit Committee, Kerry McCarthy told Unearthed that she thought China's ban would "bring the government to its senses" to show that they could no longer rely on exporting their plastic waste.

"But instead the minister… challenged the view of this as a crisis, and left it to the market to find alternative export markets."﻿

Some of the waste from the US includes single-use plastic bottles, plastic bags, and food wrappings which may contain toxic materials

"It's a problem for the US and other developed countries to produce, often, toxic material which they can't or won't take care of themselves," added the director.

Hocevar revealed that the average person throws plastic into the garbage assuming that it gets recycled, instead of shipped to China or Southeast Asia where it may be "incinerated or landfilled."

Recently, Malaysia has been taking steps to solve the plastic waste crisis

Three plastic factories were closed down in Banting, Kuala Langat this year, after residents' complaints of air and water pollution.

Two weeks ago, the government announced a new tax on plastic waste imports. It will also tighten requirements on operating permits for plastic waste recycling factories and shut down illegal factories.

In September, a report unveiled that Australia, New Zealand, and UK were also dumping their plastic waste in Malaysia: